Kazakhstan once again showed its supremacy by winning back-to-back titles at IIHF Ice Hockey Men’s Asia Championship.

Kazakhstan, which won the inaugural tournament in 2024, went a perfect 3-0 in Beijing, outscoring their opponents 13-6 and finishing with nine points.

Korea finished second with six points followed by Japan with three and China with none.

The four-team tournament, in its second year, was set up by the IIHF with the goal of developing ice hockey in Asia.

Viewers can access replays of the tournament on IIHF.tv. 

Here’s more on Sunday’s games.

Game 1: Kazakhstan 4-Japan 3

Roman Starchenko scored a pair of goals in the second period to lead defending champion Kazakhstan over Japan.

Tied 1-1 after the first period, the Kazakhs took control in the second frame with three goals to take a commanding 4-2 lead.

With Madoka Suzuki in the penalty box for slashing, Starchenko made it 2-1 at 1 minute, 37 seconds when he rifled a wrist shot from the face-off circle that beat Japan goaltender Issa Otsuka on the stick side.

Yu Sato scored a power play goal at 4:52 to pull Japan even but it didn’t take long for Kazakhstan to restore its lead.

Just 18 seconds later, Alexandr Borissevich pounced on a loose puck off a goalmouth scramble and swept it in to a wide open net.

Starchenko made it 4-2 when he took a perfect pass from Oleg Boiko midway through the second period and calmly backhanded it past Otsuka.

In the third period, Japan’s Masato Okubo pulled his team to within one goal with 4:39 left when he fired a wrist shot that beat Kazakh goaltender Roman Kalmykov.

Japan coach Jarrod Skalde pulled his goalie for an extra attacker with just under four minutes left and his team came close to tying it on several occasions.

Kazumo Sasaki had a breakaway only to be denied by Kalmykov and Okubo came close with five seconds left with a wrister that was also saved by Kalmykov.

Kazakhstan opened the scoring just 5 minutes, 47 seconds into the first period.

Starchenko took a wrist shot from the face-off circle that was saved by Otsuka but the rebound went right to Kirill Lyapunov who fired into a wide open net.

Japan equalized late in the opening frame from on a pretty 2-on-1.

Taisetsu Ushio made a nice pass to Suzuki who beat Kalmykov low on the stick side at 18:22.

Japan finished with one win and two losses.
 

Korea 3-China 0

Korea jumped out to a 3-0 lead after the first period en route to a shutout win over China to secure second place.

Sangyeob Kim opened the scoring at 7:36 when he picked up a puck that deflected off the skate of a China defender and fired a low shot that beat goalie Shifeng Chen on the glove side.

Donghyun Shin doubled the advantage with a wrist shot just under the crossbar one minute later. The officials didn’t initially call it a goal but determined it went in after reviewing the video.

Sangyeob Kim scored his second of the period to make 3-0 on a nifty tik-tac-toe with Hyeonsu Kwon and Songjae Kim at 14:38.

China’s best scoring chance came when Zesen Zhang rang one off the crossbar midway through the third period.

Korea goaltender Garam Jang earned the shutout by stopping all 25 shots. China goalie Chen stopped 34 of 37 shots on goal.

Scoring Leaders

Maxim Musorov was first in scoring with seven points followed by Starchenko with six. Yu Sato and Teruto Nakajima had five and four respectively for Japan. Borissevich and Lyapunov and Sangyeob Kim had four points each.

Final Standings 

Kazakhstan 3-0-0-0 9 pts

Korea 2-1-0-0 6 pts

Japan  1-2-0-0 3 pts

China 0-3-0-0 0 pts